59-05-032 Proceeding

382 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress expansion to the economies of scale is thus a challenge. To encourage the rural and country players to engage in such a program can thus be difficult. However, sufficient and appropriate education may be the solution, especially among the people who are earnestly seeking to improve their living and financial status. If the investment is minimum, the time taken is not intense, and the effort is not too high, coupling with the reasonable possibility of livelihood improvement, the program development might not be in vein. As a matter of fact, this may even be expanded to economies of scale from the sufficiency economy kick-start. Sufficiency Economy Development for Asian Beekeeping in Thailand HisMajesty theKing ofThailand initiated the Sufficiency Economy principles inhis remarks in December 1997 (NESDB 2007) to enhance the livelihood of Thais throughout the country. His Majesty’s philosophy of starting small, developing into something reasonably expandable and then after gaining appropriate knowledge becoming a self-immuned or sustainable economic community (Ibid p. 9) seems to fit well with the beekeeping situation in Thailand at the present. Developmental-wise this is also very logically at the long run. Beekeeping environment inThailand needs a lot of development and stimulation to make itself an economy. RuralThais can be somewhat unpredictable in their reception of innovationwhile on the other hand they may receive the whole idea and run with it. The current socio-economic context of the general public being unstable, a project that will help build a close-knit community, which can mobilize the economics fromwithin an inner circle of the society, seems to be the most appropriate path. The consideration of the Sufficiency Economy (SE) Concepts from HM the King of Thailand as a developmental process for traditional beekeeping in Thailand seems to be a very logical approach for the present circumstance. A brief point of views of the application of the philosophy may be stated below. Participants’ Point of View From the programparticipants’ point of view, the Sufficiency Economy initial involvement only takes a person or a family to get the program running, a good start for the experimentation. This being done, a community and national or larger scale can be mobilized respectively, as summarized in the points below (Ibid. p. 9, 13). 1. Individual and Family. Simple development for livelihood. 2. Community. Cooperative expansion. 3. Nation. Larger scale. Societal and People Group Point of View From the Societal and People Group point of view, we may differ from HM the King’s outline but still can stay within the frame of movement but moving into a national level (Ibid. p. 9 - 13, 17). His majesty’s level of people involvement can be seen below.